I’m keeping to the rules: this means I missed a little egret down at Fife Ness today. I was there on my usual circuit at about 9:30 this morning but didn’t see anything. Then I was emailed a phone video of a little egret in stinky pool at 11, and John Anderson phoned me up at 3 to let me know too. This would only be my second ever Crail little egret even though they are common at the Eden Estuary now. It’s such a short bike ride down to Fife Ness… but I know I am very lucky with my lockdown location and my exercise route anyway, so I will just hope for tomorrow. I did connect with a garden warbler in the garden of the ruined cottage at Balcomie Castle. I heard it singing first – a lovely mixture of scratchy and melodic warbling, with a fair bit of mimicry. Enough that I was really pleased to see the bird a few minutes later just to confirm it was only a garden warbler. They, like lesser whitethroats, are an indicator species so it perked me up again. This morning I also saw a couple of northern wheatears on the rocky shore, five whimbrels, three summer plumaged dunlin, a summer plumaged sanderling, and lots of house martins. The house martins have finally come back to Crail in good numbers with birds at Balcomie, Sauchope and more at Roome Bay.
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